Yeah I agree with you 100%. I've tried making my on changes on a couple of states too.

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Xelee: You're right, that was my intention, but I didn't step in sooner because I thought that I'd let people do their own version as well if they'd like. It also allows me to see some things that I may have missed/not considered/not known of before.

Regardless, people may as well continue here

I wasn't thinking of necessarily making everything be of a perfectly appropriate points value (which would also mean stepping away from the multiples of 5 system, IMO), but rather trying to get things closer to an appropriate cost: E.G. Khamul needs to cost a little more and Amdur needs to cost a little less and Arbalesters need to cost more than Corsairs, etc

Lol,

Knowing it was OT certainly didn't stop me.



I've almost done (ie I need to look over it again) a full list on Gondor, if you'd like that posted. Like you, I think that mostly it is a matter of smaller changes and I think some comparison to one of the better good lists will balance the discussion somewhat.

It is interesting to see other peoples opinions on points costs.

I will have to play test the various costs.

It looks like there is some agreement about Durburz, and the spell casters.

I really think that Druzhag is worth more than 175.

The Ringwriaths are very difficult to cost, and will take some play testing.

The reason that I raised the price of Amdur is that he the only evil hero with Epic Rampage. The power is not truly broken like it is with the forces of good, but it is still really powerful.

By Epic Rampage, do you mean Epic Rage? I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say that is a broken power. The drop to D3 for that turn is a major effect. Generally you will only boost yourself in cases where you're facing an opponent with high Defense. Most of those also have good Strength. Since combat (for most situations) is simultaneous you will be scoring some extra Wounds for sure with the +4 Strength, but you will find yourself getting back almost as good as you give. Having played Wood Elves in WotR a bit I can tell you that being on the receiving end of a combat with Uruks, Morannon Orc, etc. when you're D3 is NOT a pleasant experience. I'd say that your Rage against a high-D enemy, and them hitting back against your D3, is probably going to end with about as many models lost on each side, all other things being equal.

Now, not everything NEEDS to be equal of course. I don't mind Galadriel using Epic Rage if she's with a formation of Wood Elves (no negative impact). And if you have Epic Rage in a cavalry force charging infantry (strike first) then that's also going to tip the scales. Or if you have another Hero that can call Epic Defense (but that burns another Might).

After the whole discussion of the "danger" of Epic Strike and having played a few games with it used by and against me I'm pretty much settling down that Epic actions are NOT a major unbalance factor in most conditions (you probably have to cheeze your list to do so). Most EH only have 3 Might and some combos will take 2 Might to pull off, so you may have it happen once in a game.

Magic is really where I think the greatest area for abuse and the greatest risk of deviation from Tolkien's ME flavor happens with WotR. That's where I think the best benefit for change comes. Get rid of most generic spell casters, or limit them to a subset of spells rather than whole lists or limit how many times they can cast in a game (having 3 Stormcallers blasting Nature's Wrath repeatedly is ugly). Make Nazgul a little more expensive across the board (try increases of +25 to +50 to find the sweet spot). Those two changes alone would have a positive impact, but just a start.

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Amdur has Epic Rampage. For every hit his company scores in close combat, you can make another attack. It is a whole bunch more powerful than epic rage if his company is buffed. Good forces routinely vaporize entire formations in a single turn with this power.

Obviously changing magic would go a long way to balancing the game. Short of that, increasing the costs of casters would really help. Pricing the casters so that they are more costly when multiples are taken would be good.

D'oh. Sorry. Haven't actually used Epic Rampage yet. Oddly none of the forces our local players currently use have a Hero packing that one, except Amdur in a Fallen Realms but he hasn't called this. So it's one of those that was just under my radar. Yeah...that's wicked.

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Wait ye the finish! The fight is not yours.
Beowulf

http://TacticsInMiniature.com

Yeah, epic rampage is quite good. Gimli, Aragorn, in a unit of dwarves with two handed weapons, and the baruk khazad fortune from battlehosts = a dead formation.

Or even better, Gimli and Elendil. I think epic actions should be made slightly more equal. Noone would use epic restoration when they have spells of command (like Elrond) it's one of those things which you can blatantly see they haven't play tested.

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"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."
- Bertrand Russel

I held off until my rulebook was coming back, since I can hardly address any objections without it. I should have it back at club tommorrow, so here goes with Gondor. It is the full list, with entries either 'as is' or a new cost and an indication if this went up (+) of down (-). In a way Gondor is easy because it requires so few changes, I'd argue this makes a good baseline for comparison.

Warriors -as is
-Archers -25 pts (swap bow for shield)
Knights – as is
-Rangers -25pts (lower def, higher shoot+pathfinder)
Numenorians, as above
Arnorians, as above
-Citadel Guard, 30pts
-Dol Amroth Men-at-arms -30pts
-Foot Knight – 40pts (+10pts for stats, 5 for ability)
-SKODA – 45pts (5pts more than foot for higher base def)
Guard of Fountain Court as is
Artillery, a whole another discussion, IMO. I do not rate Gondor's artillery.
-Dead on Foot – 40pts (just on feel)
-Dead on Horse -50pts
+Axemen of Lossarnach -30pts
-Clansmen -25pts

Rangers of Ithilien
Base cost 100 (75pt hero+ability+additional 25pt hero)+25pts per coy.

Denethor's Guard
same base, +30 per coy.

Osgiliath Vets
100+coy cost as is

Court of dead King
125+50 per coy

Dunedain of Arnor
30pts per coy

Grey Coy
+85pts base, 35pts per coy. Needs to be capped at four coys.

Royal Guard
Same base, +25 per coy

Wardens of keys
85+40 pts per coy (extra def and extra courage/fight)

Blackroot vale archers
85pts (2 might capt, ability, banner) + 30pts per coy

Boromir as is
Aragorn as is
+Faramir 125pts
-Peregrin as is (less might, special ability, exception to below)
Imrahil as is
-Elendil 200pts
+Isildur 100pts (no comabt hero below 100pts, IMO, if captains are 50pts

Someone from my club was reading this thread and commented to me (rightly) that I was on the wrong track with my Nazgul costs. It is a fair point, splitting the difference between too high and too low isn't really the best way to go, some units just need their abilities and statlines altered. That seems off-thread, so I might make a different posting about that at some stage.

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Since this is in danger of stalling again, I'll try and bump it up.

Bear in mind that I've only gotten to play very few WOTR games, which in the eyes of some makes me incapable of making value judgements.

I'd be interested in working to balance out the kinks of the system. Even though "design by committee" might not be the most expedient method, it is potentially effective and if successful, will get more respect ("The One Ring's Balancing Rules" vs. "A random guy's rules").

I do have a lot of opinions that go beyond mere points costs. Firstly I believe Epic Strike in duels is an abomination. Second is that I think the "5 points per stat increase" is a good tool to standardize costs especially in this sort of endeavour - but the stats would need more balancing for that to happen. For Fight there is an easy fix - Infantry and Cavalry that have a superior Fight reduce their opponents' attacks (so if their F is two better, they roll 6 dice per infantry company). I actually thought this was how it was when I got the game, because it made so much sense, and was disappointed to see that was not the case and WOTR was another game where fighting skill didn't help you much.

Courage is harder to balance. How could we make courage be more important than it is now? One trick would be to introduce "break points" similar to LOTR - when half of your (formations? companies?) are gone, you need to roll courage at the start of the turn for all units. If they fail, they become disordered - or if they're already disordered, they flee the battle. This might not be enough by itself, though, and maybe not even a good mechanic to introduce. Add to that that "Inspiring Leader" can make your C score irrelevant in a lot of cases, especially since sometimes the "base race's" C score and the heroes' C score are not on the same scale, as can be seen with Mordor (Dark Marshal and Sauron).


I also think Archers need a 33% limit similar to LOTR.

Anyway, enough for now.

I think that it may have stalled because I had intended to do this as a personal project and then show everyone and receive comments on extreme disparities and people seemed to mistake that for me running it as a group project and then they became quickly leaderless, lol.

For me, it's not a case of changing rules, but rather making units that have obvious incorrect costings more appropriate (Corsair Arbalesters are cheaper than Corsairs with bows!)...

That's fine as well. However, without changes to the rules, I think one would need to re-evaluate many of the unit costs, especially those with high F and / or C.

in the war of the ring rulebook, at the front in the battle reaprt it has the army lists for isengard and rohan, the berserkers are 75 pts but in the isengard section they are 110,whitch one is it (110 or 75 )

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Karvag: not quite the intention of the thread, but it's ALWAYS the one listed int he army lists section. In this case, the 110 points for a company ruling.

I was just reading through some old threads and started playing with point values. I've only done Infantry and Calvary in Common and rare formations to start with then I fine tuned the archer units (bows,crossbows,short bows,long bows,blowpipes). I'll list them from least to most points and see what you guys think as I finish them. So first off archer units.

15 Hobbit Archers;
15 Sharkey's Ruffians

For good and evil they are the cheapest unit

20 Oathsworn Bowmen;
20 Orcs w/ Bows
20 Corsairs w/ Bows

Just a step above the cheapest of units.

25 Archers of Minas Tirith
25 Rangers of Gondor
25 Numenorean Archers
25 Rangers of Arnor;
25 Mahud w/ Blowpipes
25 Orc Trackers
25 Uruk-Hai Scouts w/Bows
25 Dundlendings w/Bows
25 Haradrim w/ Bows
25 Khandish w/ Bow
30 Easterlings w/ Bows
25 Goblins with Shortbows

Your common unit. I priced Goblins slighty higher than orcs although they have short bows. I can see a reason to take them at 25 points.

30 Watchers with Bows
30 Galadhrim Archers
30 Dwarf Archers

Getting into more elite units.

35 Mirkwood Sentinels
35 Citadel Guard w/ Longbows
35 Dwarf Rangers w/Bows
35 Wood Elves w/Longbows

I made the Sentinels equal to the Wood Elves only because its a Rare unit and no thrown weapons.

40 Uruk-Hai w/Crossbows
40 High Elves w/Longbows
45 Corsair Arbalesters

Crossbows go here along with the High Elf Longbows.

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Im a big fan of simply limiting how many heroes can be in a game. It means that infantry stop becoming trolleys for characters, and the games become more fun and tactical. When you have a max of 2 heroes, rather than 5/6, each one is valuable. The controlling player thinks more carefully about how to use his heroes and might, and the enemy player will be weighing up the option of making a devastating blow by gunning for the heroes, or whittling down the rest of the army. The player has to decide whether to use the hero as intended, and throw them into the fray where they can make use of their abilities, or keep them protected from the opponent who's gonna want to kill 'em asap.

Using Battlehosts, and saying they cannot be joined by other heroes (which seems fair, and appears to be the way the BH's ware intended to be used) sort of self-regulates the rules a bit. Most of the battlehosts have characterful, fun, powerful, but reasonably well balanced buffs in and of themselves, and lend more importance and flair to the characters.

So if a 2000 point game has a 2 hero limit, say, someone could still take 2 wraiths, and they'd still be incredibly powerful for the points, and mastery 3 darkness casters and all that? Yeah, true, they're still awesome, perhaps unfairly priced and really powerful, but not game breakingly so if there's just 2 of 'em!

Hi Hydraface, I agree that other Epics should be kept out of Battlehosts. However, hero caps do not really do not really rule out the worst hero combos and penalise other, already struggling, lists that really rely on their Epics. Spell caster limits make a lot of sense though.

Not that I don't think points also need rebalancing (as well as some stats reallocating), and I'd be increasing the price of the 20-25 pt heavy inf right accross the board.

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